Eliot Ness collection up for auction

Eliot Ness' license to enforce the laws and regulations relating to the manufacture, sale, transportation, control and taxation of alcohol was one of many items up for auction.

Eliot Ness' license to enforce the laws and regulations relating to the manufacture, sale, transportation, control and taxation of alcohol was one of many items up for auction. (Photo courtesy Central Mass Auctions Inc.)

A collection of credentials and memorabilia belonging to the "Untouchable" is being auctioned off this fall. It includes Ness' Department of Justice credentials dated May 14, 1932 and his Treasury Department of Prohibition credentials dated May 20, 1927.

There's also Eliot Ness' business card and a Christmas card, and campaign photographs and brochures from Ness' unsuccessful 1947 run for mayor of Cleveland.

The collection is from the estate of Ness' personal secretary, Winifred Higgins Knorr, who died in 1997. Central Mass Auctions, in Worcester, Mass. says the collection has been appraised at $30,000 to $50,000 and will be sold "as an entirety" in September.

Wayne Tuiskula, an auctioneer for the company, spotted the collection while appraising items for the "Antiques Roadshow" in July of 2010.

Ness was born in Chicago in 1903, attended Fenger High School and graduated from the University of Chicago, where he later got a master's degree in criminology. As a Prohibition agent he led a team nicknamed The Untouchables, which had a reputation that members couldn't be bribed.